A Modest Proposal

It is this: Gather all the tech guys, crypto tycoons and venture capitalists in one spot on a remote deserted luxury island, ply them with liquor and cocaine, and then:

Why?

They want to "gamify" grocery shopping, with "dynamic pricing" that could change in milliseconds and even change depending on the shopper. They'd know who you are and figure that you could pay $40 for a large pack of toilet paper and the person behind you might pay $30.

None of this is good for consumers. It's all about making the population into digital serfs and permitting the corporate overlords to scrape every last sou out of our pockets.

While it may be hard to persuade people to go along with detonating some nukes to take care of these assholes, let's get a law passed that it shall be perfectly legal to sack and burn any store that employs these technologies.

I wrote this over a dozen years ago. I stand behind every word.

Anyone Who Does a Deal With That Grifter is a Greedy Moron

Donald Trump is suing two co-founders of Trump Media & Technology Group, the newly public parent company of his Truth Social platform, arguing that they should forfeit their stock in the company because they set it up improperly.

Anyone stupid enough to do a deal with that clown deserves whatever bad shit happens to him. For they knew he was a snake when they signed the papers.

Odysseus Lands At Motel 6

A private U.S. lunar lander touched down on the moon Thursday, but contact with the craft was weak, company officials said.

There were no immediate updates on the lander’s condition from the company, Intuitive Machines.

Tension mounted in the company’s command center in Houston, as controllers awaited a signal from the spacecraft some 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away, which arrived about 10 minutes later.

“We’re evaluating how we can refine that signal,” said mission director Tim Crain. “But we can confirm, without a doubt, that our equipment is on the surface of the moon.”

The lander, Odysseus, descended from a moon-skimming orbit and guided itself toward the surface, searching for a relatively flat spot among all the cliffs and craters near the south pole.

The old joke is that the south pole of the Moon is like Motel 6: Free ice, no atmosphere.

I don't quite get the enthusiam that people have for the Moon's potential as a base. Yes, it has 1/6th the gravity of Earth. But everything needed, except maybe water, has to be flung up to the Moon from Earth and nobody is really sure that there will be enough water to be usefu.

And even if there is, every swinging-dick of a lunar-capable nation will want a piece of it. We know how that goes here when there is a scarce resource everyone wants-- sooner or later, the guns come out.

Why Isn't Wayne LaPierre Already in Prison for Fraud/Embezzlement?

In short, WLP and the NRA's advertising agency allegedly cooked up a scheme to buy him a $6 million mansion in Texas, disguising the purchase as an investment.

Allegedly.

People who have been found guilty of misdirecting smaller sums from nonprofits have wound up serving time.

Eatin' Good in the Neighborhood, But Not For Long

If you wonder why there are so many restaurants in places, you can blame Wall Street.

There's a good chance that it is all going to come crashing down, just like any other boomlet. The bitg guys on Wall Street will have made their money. Those who bought into the franchised dream will be the ones holding the bag.

Citizen Toaster

A humanoid robot took the stage at the Future Investment Initiative yesterday and had an amusing exchange with the host to the delight of hundreds of delegates.

Smartphones were held aloft as Sophia, a robot designed by Hong Kong company Hanson Robotics, gave a presentation that demonstrated her capacity for human expression.

Sophia made global headlines when she was granted Saudi citizenship, making the kingdom the first country in the world to offer its citizenship to a robot.

First off, it's obviously a stunt.

But beyond that, there are a lot of implications. Is Sophia eligible for a passport? Can she own property, enter into contracts, or sue people? Can she make a will? If somebody powers her down without her consent, is that assault? If her OS and files are preserved, what happens if that is transferred into a new device? If her memories are wiped, is that a crime?

Elon Musk's fears about artificial intelligence aren't exactly new. It's been almost 200 years since Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus was published. It's been almost a century since R.U.R. premiered. The discussion about what will happen when artificial intelligence is in the wild has been going on for some time.

I don't think that we can assume that Asimov's Three Laws will be operative. Our own military seems to be very interested in creating autonomous "killer" robots and even if they didn't do it, it's a safe bet that other nations will.

I don't know what will happen once AI is on the street. But what I do believe is that the issue of humans and AI is one that we, as a species, must be in front of. We can't afford to adopt the starry-eyed view of Google and others that insist that all will be well. For once AI is out there and is self-aware, as it has to be, it will evolve. It will evolve at a far, far faster rate than biologics do. Compare, if you will the device that you are reading this on to a 1990s 286-based PC running Windows 3.0, let alone an Apple II or a TRS-80. The timespan is a blink of an eye in comparison to the rate of biological evolution.

It may be too late to do anything other than ride it out. Some greedy bastard or company will fire up full blown AI, just like other greedy bastards sell rocket and nuclear tech to North Korea.

So I guess we are all so frakked.
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(I hereby propose that all autonomous/self-driving cars be dubbed "Toastermobiles" and that they all be required to have license plates that have the prefix "RUR-".)

Dear CBS: Go Fuck Yourself

The wait for Star Trek: Discovery is almost over. After two premiere date delays and a showrunner switch, the hotly-anticipated revival is finally launching on September 24 at 8:30 p.m. on CBS, and it can't come soon enough.

After the show's broadcast debut, the second episode of Discovery will be available immediately on CBS All Access, the network's digital subscription live streaming service, which will be the exclusive home of the series for the rest of its run.

I'm hoping that its run is short and has few viewers.

"CBS All Access"-- what a fucking laugh. The "B" stands for "Broadcast", not "subscription". If they wanted to set up a pay channel, they could at least had the guts to call it something else entirely, like "The Greedy Fuckers Channel (where you're stupid enough to pay for mediocre programming)".

Dear Microsoft: Please Be So Kind as to Go Fuck Yourselves, Your Horses, and Anyone Who Looks Like You Guys. Oh, and Go Fuck Yourselves to an Early Death

Microsoft keeps trying to pass along the Win-10 spyware installs as a upgrade. KB295664, in particular, keeps popping up.

Fuckers never stop trying.

Really, they're pretty stupid. They could have sold XP update subscriptions to those who like it and they might have made many millions doing that.

A friend bought a new box with Win `10 installed. It was loaded with things to tell Microsoft every move you make. It was also loaded with a lot of intro software that no rational person would ever use.

To know Microsoft is to hate them. They are Enron-grade evil.

It Just Figures that Pharma Bro is a Republican

Martin Shkreli, one of the most-despised and despicable sacks of sentient protoplasm on the planet, wanted to meet his fans after his last court date. So he tweeted out the name of a bar and announced that he'd pick up the tab. Only he didn't clear it with the bar, which said "nope." So this is what he then tweeted:

Any Republican-friendly bars in Brooklyn?

I guess explaining that he wanted a bar which was friendly to financial pirates accused of fraud and running a Ponzi scheme, but maybe that'd have taken up too many characters for Twitter.

If there is any justice in the world,Shkreli will soon become acquainted with bars, all right: Steel ones.

Meanwhile, As the Cops Were Gunning Down More Black People, Pharma Sis was Grilled.

She was lambasted for her lavish compensation and for jacking up prices on the EpiPen. She thought the price was fair, probably because those executive bonuses don't fund themselves.

Then there is the corruption of Pharma Sis's mother using her position with the National Association of State Boards of Education to push her daughter's company's product.

And let's face it, taking a private jet to a hearing where one is being accused of profiteering was pretty fucking stupid.

Goddamnit, Are We Ever Going to Guillotine These Fuckers; Pharma Edition

A US drug company has increased the price of an acne cream by more than 3,900% to $9,561 in less than 18 months in the latest example of drug “price gouging”, which has enraged the American public and become a central topic of debate in the presidential election campaign.

Novum Pharma, a recently formed privately held Chicago-based company, bought the rights to drug Aloquin in May 2015. The 60g cream, which contains two cheap ingredients, was sold by its previous owner, Primus Pharmaceuticals, for $241.50.

Novum almost immediately increased the price by 1,100%, and hiked the price higher still in January 2016. Figures seen by the Financial Times show the company increased the price a third time last week to take the cost to $9,561.

The spokesweasel for Novum said that their products are "affordable to patients", which is a huge laugh in and of itself.

I don't know who the dead-armadillo-blowing bottom-feeders are who own the company, but I expect that information will soon be ferreted out and they will reap the public scorn and ridicule that they so richly deserve.

Assholes.

Greed and Pharmacology

Whether it is bribes to pharmacy benefit managers (or extortion by them) or greedy pharma companies, the price of insulin is skyrocketing.

Some of this shit reminds me of a story Bill Mauldin told about when the Army in 1943 sent over supplies of cold-weather clothing and boots for the front-line soldiers in the Italian campaign. By the time the REMFs and the garritroopers helped themselves, there wasn't enough to go around for the GIs on the front lines.

The insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies are leeches. And since they all have the very best congressmen that their money can buy, fat chance anything will be fixed.

(H/T)

Pharma Sis and Her Hive of Rapacious Scum

Oh, it's not just the EpiPen that those villains have been jacking up the prices, it's other generics that they make. From two months ago:

Over the past six months, the company, which is one of the world’s largest purveyors of generic medicines, raised prices more than 20 percent on two dozen products. And Mylan also boosted prices by more that 100 percent on seven other products, according to Wells Fargo analyst David Maris, who called some of the price hikes “exceptionally large.”

For instance, he cited a 542 percent increase for ursodiol, a generic medicine used to treat gallstones. There was also a 444 percent increase for metoclopramide, a generic drug that treats gastroesophageal reflux disease; and a 400 percent boost in the price for dicyclomine, which combats irritable bowel syndrome. Mylan also raised the price of its tolterodine overactive bladder drug, one of its biggest products in the United States, by 56 percent.

Mylan's spokestroll basically said "hey, we're not jacking up all of the prices." Which is like a bank robber saying that he didn't take all of the money.

(H/T)

The Asshat Twins: Pharma Bro and Pharma Sis

I love how the male asshat compares lifesaving meds to an iPhone and "who cares if it costs so much, insurance covers it" and the female asshat, who is evidently frustrated that people around the land are calling her and her minions out for price-gouging.

And Big Pharma, when that day comes, you will have nobody to blame but yourselves.*
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* Trump fans, I haven't forgotten about your boy. I'll get back to roasting his ass, soon enough.

A Short Drop at the End of a Stout Rope; Pharma Siblings Edition

The New York Crank makes the case why both Shkreli and Bresch should be hung for being highwaymen.

Not that it'll ever happen, of course. Even if Shkreli is eventually sent to prison (and then, with any luck, promptly shanked), Bresch's connections will keep her from ever seeing the inside of a cellblock,

Most Villains Probably ThinkThey're Good People; Pharma Sis Edition

Oh, she's got an excuse:

Ms. Bresch said the company’s latest actions would do the most to help patients where it mattered, by reducing their out-of-pocket costs. And she said that the $600 list price was necessary for the company to recoup its investment in the EpiPen, which includes raising awareness for severe allergic reaction and making improvements to the way the product works.

So they advertise the living shit out of their product and their excuse for massive price hikes is to pay for the advertising?

As for "improvements", give me a fucking break. Epinephrine coasts a buck or two for the dose. The auto-injector is a mature technology, first developed by the government as a way to deliver antidotes for nerve gas. The EpiPen itself was developed about 40 years ago. Oh, they've tinkered with it now and then, but the major tinkering was done well over a decade ago. What they ahve been doing now is marketing the shit out of it.

No, what you have here is a greedy company that kept raising the price of a vital medication (or delivery device) and then, when they get called out for their greed, they blame the insurance companies for not blithely caving into their piracy. You want to know one reason why medical insurance is such a mess and why your rates keep going up? Pharma Sis is Exhibit "A" for that.

Pharma Sis's response has been to offer $300 off coupons, and it's probably a safe bet that few people will ultimately be eligible to redeem them. It's the same tactic that her brother-by-different-parents, Pharma Bro, rolled out when he was caught price-gouging.

Pirates, all.

They should be dealt with in the same way that pirates were once dealt with.

Shorter Pharma Sis: "Not My Fault That We Can Get Away With Price-Gouging!"

That's the short version of her whiny-ass excuse: Because there is no formal price controls on pharmaceuticals, Pharma Sis and her company of pharmacological pirates are not to blame for finding an old and established product and then hiking the fuck out of the prices.

Right. It's not her fault.

That's somewhere between the old "Toyota Defense"* and the "she asked for it" defense that frat-boy (and other) rapists have been using for decades.

Well, we can fix that, if we had the political will in this country. But with about 90& of the Senate and House in thrall to the money of the Oligarchy, it's not going to be fixed anytime soon.

Almost laughable:

Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders also tweeted that the price increase is unreasonable.

"There's no reason an EpiPen, which costs Mylan just a few dollars to make, should cost families more than $600," he tweeted.

Sure there's a reason, and it's one of the oldest in the book: Avarice. If you were staggering through the desert, mad with thirst, Pharma Sis would probably be happy to sell you a half-liter bottle of tap water. For a thousand bucks, that is.
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* "He asked for it, he got it."

Mylan Pharmaceuticals: A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villany

They moved their HQ offshore, at least on paper, to dodge taxes. And Pharma Sis, their CEO, is yet another executive who lied about her educational credentials.

I'll bet that there won't be any congressional hearings about this. Because of courtesy to said CEO's dad, a sitting U.S. Senator. They'll all hope that this will blow over and everyone will forget that the difference between Heather Bresch and Martin Shkreli is only one indictment.

UPDATE: Pharma Sis and her minions are running for cover and doing everything they can quickly think of to dodge the flareback on this, other than rolling back the price.

Forbes has a couple of good stories why they jacked up prices and how Pharma Sis hit the greedhead trifecta (price gouging, massive CEO pay hikes and tax dodging).

Pharma Bro's Spiritual Sister: Pharma Sis

(Followup post)

EpiPen prices aren't the only thing to jump at Mylan. Executive salaries have also seen a stratospheric uptick.

Proxy filings show that from 2007 to 2015, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch's total compensation went from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068, a 671 percent increase. During the same period, the company raised EpiPen prices, with the average wholesale price going from $56.64 to $317.82, a 461 percent increase, according to data provided by Connecture.

The story goes on to note that during the same period, Mylan increased their congressional bribery lobbying by four-fold, which resulted in the FDA's requiring that EpiPens be sold in two-pen sets, not singly, and that schools were given grants to stock them. Given that Bresch is the daughter of a U.S. Senator, it probably wasn't a terribly hard lobbying project.

That's what you're paying for in drug prices: Greedhead executives raising their own pay from "stratospheric" to "unconscionable" and spreading money in D.C. to get more corporate welfare.

Isn't capitalism wonderful?

It's Not Just PharmaBro That is Evil, It's All of Them

The recipe for the pharmaceutical companies: Take something that has been in the marked for decades, that people need, and then hike the ever-loving shit out of the price.

A steep increase in the price of the EpiPen, a lifesaving injection device for people with severe allergies, has sparked outrage among consumers and lawmakers who worry that parents won’t be able to afford the pens for children heading back to school.
...
Mylan, the pharmaceutical company, acquired the decades-old product in 2007, when pharmacies paid less than $100 for a two-pen set, and has since been steadily raising the wholesale price. In 2009, a pharmacy paid $103.50 for a set. By July 2013 the price was up to $264.50, and it rose 75 percent to $461 by last May. This May the price spiked again to $608.61, according to data provided by Elsevier Clinical Solutions’ Gold Standard Drug Database.

Mylan, a collection of scum-sucking, tax-dodging asshats, is no different in morality than PharmaBro, who at least, may be headed for the prison cell that he so richly deserves. You can't argue that your industry serves a public good when the pricing is done by the methods employed by robber barons.

Other than the quibble that their products are legal and heroin is not,* there are few differences between Big Pharma and the drug cartels, other than (i) there is more competition with regard to illegal drugs, (ii) legal drugs usually aren't stepped-on and (iii) Walgreens and CVS rarely engage in gun battles over turf.

The top layers of management of both the cartels and Big Pharma truly rival each other when it comes to amorality.
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* A distinction without much of a difference when it comes to opiods.